Industrial, medical, dental, scientific and environment rehabilitation plants can release waters laden with hazardous particles. Despite numerous attempts in the prior art, there is still a need for simple and cost effective, yet innovative device that could be installed in a flexible manner across the drainage lines that drain such a hazardous waters.
Medical facilities are the second largest waste producers, being second only to food industry. Dental clinics produce both biological and chemical waste that is related to surgical and restorative procedures respectively. Efforts to minimize the environmental hazards of dental waste have focused for decades mainly on mercury and other metals and toxic chemicals in typical dental waste. However, while the use of amalgam in restorative dentistry has declined sharply in recent decades we are witnessing a steep surge in invasive surgical procedures in dentistry that rather produce waste with blood and significantly hazardous biological components.
The dental field is an example of specialty area with an endless stream of emerging products to challenge with highly particle loaded water with hazardous properties. The infrastructure and manpower constraints present in a typical dental office requires that the equipment and apparatus used for the removal of wastes from dental effluent be of a reasonable operational and handling simplicity along with ultra-safe mounting and dismounting procedures. The apparatus should also not require substantial ongoing maintenance or downtime, and should be able to be operated in a self-sufficient manner for extended periods of time.
Any system for the removal and storage of hazardous waste products from dental effluent in a clinical setting should avoid the production of derivatives or byproducts that could be harmful upon exposure or release into the environment.
A number of devices have been described that are designed to remove waste products from dental effluents. These devices include one or more aspects such as gravity sedimentation of particles (e.g. U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,592,752, 5,885,076, 5,795,159, US 200100479561A1, U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,795,159 and 4,732,739), centrifuges designed to separate the heavier toxic metallic particles such as mercury from the effluent, ion-exchange systems for binding and removing charged molecules (e.g. U.S Pat. No. 5,885,076), and the use of chemical agents such as precipitants (e.g. 5,885,076, US 200100479561A1), chelating agents, flocculants, or adsorbants (e.g. U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,592,752, 6,592,754, US 200100479561A1). Acid-base adjustment, for example in mix tanks, has also been used in order to adjust the pH conditions to promote mercury precipitation in some systems (JP60197285A2, U.S. Pat. No. 6,592,752). Other sedimentation methods or pump filtration systems rely on mechanical filtration for the removal of mercury and other hazardous materials (e.g. U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,592,752, 5,885,076, 5,795,159, 6,592,754, 5,795,159. Such filters optionally incorporate methods based on ion-exchange, pH adjustment and absorbent columns (U.S. patent application Ser. No. 2001/0047956).
The entire prior art lacks the step of eliminating the biological component in such separators which is an essential step in tackling the bioconversion of mercury. Mercury is transformed into methylmercury when the oxidized or mercuric species (Hg2+), gains a methyl group (CH3). The methylation of Hg2+ is primarily a biological process resulting in the production of highly toxic and bioaccumulative methylmercury compounds (MeHg+). Although the exact mechanism by which bacteria biomethylizes inorganic Mercury into the organic methylmercury is not known precisely, the consequences of this bioconversion is well known. Methylmercury compounds that are produced by this bioconversion are more soluble derivatives of mercury and subsequently are more able to build up in living tissue and increase in concentration up the food chain, up to humans, once released to the waste collecting and processing system. Methylmercury compounds are responsible for birth defects and nervous disorders in people exposed to methyl mercury through their food.
Thus, microorganism proliferation in bottom sediment and sludge in dental office waste separators could play a hazardous role in mercury bioconversion if a recycling process of dental waste does not include a step of eliminating the biological component in a dental waste separator, before removing the residing insoluble or soluble mercury from the separator.
Hence, an innovative and eco-friendly system and apparatus is provided herewith for managing the biological waste component, beside metallic and chemical components of the dental waste.